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leave me the fuck alone. The thing is, I’m just as outraged as Kate is about all this, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to see Gideon Logistics exposed. But I’m not a fool. I don’t have any illusions. I know if I make trouble for them, if I start acting the loudmouth, they could – and would – crush me as quickly as they did those two guys in the walk-in freezer.
    As I pass a store window, I see my reflection. It occurs to me that maybe I should smarten up a bit. No matter how reasonable I sound, if I look like a street person Arthur P. Galansky will more than likely conclude that I am a risk and can’t be relied on to play ball. I pass another window and realise that I don’t look that bad. Besides, my idea of smartened-up probably wouldn’t register with them as being all that different from how I look now. But something else occurs to me as I cross 14th. Is that what I’m proposing to do here? To play ball? It is, isn’t it? Which is why I don’t want to go back to the apartment, or look at any of the three text messages (I’m assuming from Kate) that I’ve already felt vibrating in my pocket. I don’t need to be reminded every five minutes that my response to the Gideon letter is craven and spineless. I know it is. But whose is the more lawyerly approach in all of this? Mine or Kate’s? Who’s being more pragmatic?
    It occurs to me that I should probably get something to eat. The only thing I’ve had since I got up this morning is a glass of OJ, and I’m beginning to feel light-headed. After another few blocks I stop at a diner, sit in a booth, and order a BLT. I feel better once I’ve eaten. I drag my time out with a few refills of coffee. Then I leave and take the train up to Grand Central.
    The place where Gideon has its offices, the Wolper & Stone Building, is one I’ve passed many times but have never given a second glance. It’s an anonymous glass box that houses dozens of companies, and there’s a constant flow of people in and out of it. I pace the sidewalk for a while, but then just head inside and walk straight over to reception. I’m half an hour early, but I don’t care. I give my name. The guy at reception checks my ID, consults his register, and calls up.
    A few minutes later I’m in an elevator on the way to the seventeenth floor. Gideon’s reception area is spacious and sleek, and, although I’m all too familiar with the company logo, I’ve never seen it in such an anodyne corporate setting before. I stand at the reception desk as the lady I spoke to on the phone earlier deals with a call and checks something on her screen. Music hums in the background, but it’s so low and subtle it might actually be some sort of brainwave entrainment.
    ‘May I help you?’ the receptionist says, her eyes still on the screen. After a beat, she looks at me. Her voice may be neutral, but those eyes tell a different story.
    ‘Danny Lynch,’ I say, ‘for Arthur Galansky. I’m a bit early.’
    She consults a sheet in front of her. ‘Yes, sir. Indeed.’
    In my pocket, I feel the pulse of another message alert.
    ‘I’ll let Mr Galansky know you’re here. Please take a seat, Mr, uh . . . Lynch.’
    I move across reception to an area with some seats and a low glass table. As I’m sitting down I take out my phone. Kate’s first two messages were basically ‘Call me.’ Her third was ‘Call a lawyer’ . . . as in, I might need one, so shouldn’t I take care of that before I actually meet with anyone? She has a point – I guess, in theory – but it’s too late now. I’m here, I’m on my own, and the last thing I want to do is give these people the impression that I’m even thinking of lawyering up. The fourth message, the one that came through just a few moments ago, is longer and somewhat panicky in tone. Kate looked up Galansky too, and got a bit more detail than I did. It seems the guy is something of a legend in corporate legal circles, with an impressive record